Meet our April Change for Good recipient, Stream Smart with the Rogue Valley Council of Governments!

What is Stream Smart?

Stream Smart is an educational campaign designed to affect changes in behavior. One important change is an increased awareness of how our daily choices can impact our local streams and rivers. You can make Stream Smart choices at home, such as picking up after your pet, landscaping with porous materials, and restoring streamside (riparian) areas through planting trees to provide added shade. All of these actions work to help prevent water pollution and improve water quality. The Natural Resources Department conducts environmental education and outreach programs (like Stream Smart) for members in a variety of formats. Throughout the year you will find Natural Resources staff conducting workshops, open houses, presentations, field programs or at local events with exhibits, displays, and hands-on-activities.

"By providing information and tools that individuals need to make Stream Smart choices, we help to empower everyone to do their part to turn our streams from brown to blue." 

How did this campaign start?

The Bear Creek Watershed Council (now the Rogue River Watershed Council), the Rogue Valley Council of Governments, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Jackson Soil and Water Conservation District, Rogue Valley Sewer Services, Rogue River Valley Irrigation District, local city and county representatives, and others teamed up in 2011 to develop a strategy to increase awareness and knowledge about simple, everyday behavior changes residents and businesses can adopt to improve the quality of water flowing in Bear Creek and the Rogue River.

What is RVCOG?

Rogue Valley Council of Governments (RVCOG) is a voluntary association of 24 local jurisdictions, special districts, and education institutions in southwestern Oregon’s Jackson and Josephine Counties. Its primary focus is to support local and regional problem solving. Although the COG’s programs have evolved over the years as a response to new needs of members and changing funding sources, it has always maintained its fundamental role as a regional resource for technical expertise and project management, as well as a collective voice for the region when working with the state or federal government.

For more information please visit www.rvcog.org/education-and-outreach-programs/stream-smart/